Obama and the Europeans

Just as the US media have mistaken the very protectionist Mr. Sarkozy for aan all out US sympathizer, I am afraid the European public is vastly mistaken about Mr. Obama. The 200,000 spectators from all over Europe who cheered B.O. around the Victory Column in Berlin (a monument honoring Bismarck and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine), stopped swooning when the US candidate asked them for more commitment to the war in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama is a great hero for the European left which sees in him a mix of Malcolm X and Jack Kennedy.Their adulation is in direct relation with their hatred of the hapless George W. Bush. I was amzed to see marginalized arab and black kids of French immigrant ghettoes sign petitions in favor of Obama. They too have illusions about the phenom.
The immense wave of hope and admiration raised by B.O.on the Old Continent shows that there is still great admiration and expectations about America. The recent disaffection was almost entirely due to the war in Iraq and the likes of Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo etc. An Obama administration could actually regain credit rather quickly.

But Obama is not the Messiah the young Islamists of the Paris suburbs have been expecting, neither is he the gutless pacifist most Europeans have become. An Obama Administration would expect Europe to send more of its youth to the front, and will certainly nt put America's interest behind that of the rest of the Globe.